Hunnic language
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Revision as of 20:25, 31 January 2011
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hunnic_language&oldid=411231983
The Hunnic language, or Hunnish, is the language spoken by the historic
European and Asian Huns (Indian
Huna).[1][2][3]
The literary records for this language are sparse, consisting of a few names and
words, and there is no firm scholarly consensus on its affinities.[4][5]
Hunnic lexicon and
grammar
The suggestion that Hunnic was a Turkic language arises
from the identification of some of the Hunnic names, attested in the surviving
literary records, as Turkic.[6]
The only Hunnic phrase recorded in the Chinese annals (Jin shi) was
uttered by a Buddhist monk Buttocho in service of the Later Zhao Tianwang Shi Le in connection with the Shi
Le fight against Liu Yao in
328 CE. The phrase, specifically identified as Hunnic (Jie Hu), was recorded with Chinese
translation of the whole phrase and its each word, and phonetic rendering.[7]
This phrase was analyzed and translated in numerous publications. [8]
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]
The Turkic language of the
phrase was demonstrated by the translations of Ramstedt, Bazin,
Von Gabain, and Shervashidze, who recognized Turkic lexicon and grammar, and
gave their versions of the transcription and translation.
Turkic Language
Claims
秀支 替戾剛,
僕谷 劬禿當
Fang Xuanling gave
the Chinese translations of the words in the phrase (phonetic Romanization per
V.S. Taskin [13]):
"秀支 (süčy) means “army" 軍; 替戾剛 (tiligan ) is “go out” 出; 僕谷 (Pugu) is Liu Yao
Hu's title 劉曜胡位; 劬禿當 (qüitudan) is
“seize”, “catch" 捉". [14]
Ramstedt |
Bazin |
Von Gabain |
Shervashidze |
Sükâ tal'iğan bügüg tutan! |
Süg tâgti idqan boquγı tutqan! |
Särig tilitgan buγuγ kötüzkan |
Sükâ tol'iqtin buγuγ qodigo(d)tin |
Go with a war [and] captured bügü! |
Send an army to attack [and] capture the commander! |
You'd put forth the army, you'd take the deer |
You came to the army Deposed buγuγ |
The inscription on the Khan Diggiz plate has been interpreted as giving the
name of a known Western Hunnic king, Dengizich, son of Attila, in a form of Turkic.[15][16]
Indo-European
Language Claims
Other names were classified as Germanic[17]
and Iranian,[18]
which implicates that the Hunnic language could have also been Indo-European instead of
Turkic. To strengthen that argument, the recorded words (medos, kamos,
strava (and possibly cucurun)) do not seem to be Turkic.[19]
Thus in reality, it is not fundamentally clear which 'primary' language was
spoken, although the Gothic language was the
lingua franca of that time.[20]
Linguistic
classification
Hunnic has been theoretically considered by some, with the languages Bulgar, Khazar, Turkic Avar and Chuvash, to be a member
of the Oghuric branch of the Turkic language
family.[21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]
All except for Chuvash are extinct and known only from very scant records.
Other theories point out to either Indo-European or Uralic
classifications.
Hunnic and other
language groups
Uralic Language
Claims
Attempts have been made to identify the Hunnic language as related to
Hungarian.[29]
Hungarian legends and
histories from medieval times onwards assume close ties with the Huns. The name
Hunor is preserved in legends and (with a few Hunnic names, such as
Attila) is used as a given name in modern Hungary and in Turkey as respectively
Onur and Atilla. Some Hungarian people share the belief that the
Székelys,
a Hungarian ethnic group living in Romania, are descended from a group of Huns who remained in the Carpathian Basin after
454; this myth was recorded in the medieval Gesta Hungarorum.[30]
It has been suggested that the Hunnic language was related to that of the Xiongnu and not to other
language groups, but there is no scholarly consensus on this suggestion or on
what languages the Xiongnu spoke.[31][32]
Notes
- ^
Wang Shiping, Where Did the Huns Go? http://www.chinesejy.com/yuwen/259/305/2005122925403.html
- ^
Wang Zu, Scourge of God http://www.amazon.cn/dp/bkbk705875
- ^
Lin Gan, A Study of Northern Nationalities in Ancient China http://www.amazon.cn/dp/zjbk600291
- ^
Otto J. Maenchen-Helfen. The World of the Huns: Studies in Their History and
Culture. University of California Press, 1973
- ^
Otto Maenchen-Helfen, Language of Huns
- ^
Notably as documented in the works of Maenchen-Helfen (1973), Pritsak (1982),
Kemal (2002).
- ^
Fang Xuanling, "Jin-shu" (History of Jin Dynasty), Peking, Bo-na, 1958,
Ch. 95, pp. 12-b - 13-a
- ^
Ramstedt G.J., "Zur Frage nach der Stellung des Tschuwassischen" (On the
question of the position of the Chuvash), JSFOu 38, 1922, pp. 1on
- ^
Bazin L., "Un texte prototürk du 4-e siecle", Oriens, Vol. 1. No. 2,
1948, pp. 211on
- ^
Von Gabain, A. "Animal traits in the army commander", Journal of
Turkish Studies, 1:95-112, 1949
- ^
Pulleyblank E.G., "The consonantal system of Old Chinese", Asia Major 9
(1963), p. 264
- ^
Shervashidze I.N. "Verb forms in the language of the Turkic runiform
inscriptions", Tbilisi, 1986, pp. 3-9
- ^
Taskin V.S. "Materials on the history of nomadic peoples in China. 3rd -
5th cc. AD. Issue 2. Jie", p. 8
- ^
Fang Xuanling, "Jin-shu"., Ibid, Ch. 95, pp. 12-b-13-a
- ^
Azgar Mukhamadiev. "The Khan Diggiz Dish Inscription". Excerpts from the
article "Turanian Writing", in: Problems Of Linguoethnohistory Of The Tatar
People, Kazan, 1995, pages 36–83 [1]
- ^
Muhamadiev A. "Ancient coins of Kazan", Kazan, 2005, pp. 37-41, ISBN
5-298-04057-8
- ^
http://www.kroraina.com/huns/mh/mh_4.html O. Maenchen-Helfen
The World of the Huns. Chapter IX. Language. 5. Iranian names
- ^
http://www.kroraina.com/huns/mh/mh_5.html O. Maenchen-Helfen
The World of the Huns. Chapter IX. Language. 4. Germanized and Germanic Names
- ^
Otto Maenchen-Helfen, Language of Huns, Ch. 9.
- ^
Priscus fr. 8 ("For the
subjects of the Huns, swept together from various lands, speak, besides their
own barbarous tongues, either Hunnic or Gothic, or--as many as have commercial
dealings with the western Romans--Latin")
- ^
"It is assumed that the Huns also were speakers of an l- and r-
type Turkic language and that their migration was responsible for the
appearance of this language in the West." Johanson (1998); cf. Johanson (2000,
2007) and the articles pertaining to the subject in Johanson & Csató (ed.,
1998).
- ^
Pritsak, Omeljan. 1982 "The Hunnic Language of the Attila Clan." Harvard
Ukrainian Studies, vol. 6, pp. 428–476.[2]
- ^
Dybo A.V., "Linguistic contacts of early Türks. Lexical fund: Pra-Türkic
period" Moscow, 2007, p. 103, ISBN 98-5-02-036320-5 (In Russian)
- ^
Dybo A.V., "Chronology of Türkic languages and linguistic contacts of early
Türks", Moskow, 2007, p. 786, [3]
(In Russian)
- ^
Starostin S.A. (project "Tower of Babel"), [4] the database
includes Sinicisms borrowed into the Pra-Türkic (i.e., present in both
Pra-Türkic and Bulgar branches)
- ^
Murdak O.A. "Pra-Türkic metallurgical lexicon", “Monumenta Altaica”, [5]
- ^
Tzvetkov P.S., "The Turks, Slavs and the Origin of the Bulgarians"//The
Turks, Vol 1, pp. 562-567, Ankara, 2002, ISBN
975-6782-55-2, 975-6782-56-0
- ^
Shervashidxe I.N., "Fragment of Ancient Türkic lexicon.
Titles"//Problems of Linguistics, No 3, pp. 81-91, (In Russian)
- ^
http://www.kroraina.com/huns/mh/mh_4.html O. Maenchen-Helfen.
The World of the Huns. Chapter IX. Language. 4. Germanized and Germanic Names
"the thesis that Kéẓai, who dedicated his Gesta Hungarorum to Ladislaus IV
(1272-1290), preserved genuine Magyar traditions about the Huns has long been
refuted. Eighty years ago Hodgkin wrote: "The Hungarian traditions no more
fully illustrate the history of Attila than the Book of Mormon illustrates the
history of the Jews.""
- ^
Kordé Zoltán: A székelykérdés története
- ^
Étienne de la Vaissière, Xiongnu. Encyclopedia
Iranica online, 2006
- ^
Dr. Obrusánszky, Borbála : The History and Civilization of the Huns.
Paper of the University of Amsterdam, 8 October 2007. Page 60. [6]
Bibliography
- Clark, Larry. 1998. "Chuvash." In: Johanson & Csató, pp. 434–452.
- Gmyrya, L. 1995. Hun country at the Caspian Gate: Caspian Dagestan
during the epoch of the Great Movement of Peoples. Makhachkala: Dagestan
Publishing.
- Golden, Peter B.
1998. "The Turkic peoples: A historical sketch." In: Johanson & Csató,
pp. 16–29.
- Heather, Peter. 1995. "The Huns and the End of the Roman Empire in Western
Europe." English Historical Review 110.4–41.
- Johanson, Lars & Éva Agnes Csató (ed.). 1998. The Turkic
languages. London: Routledge.
- Johanson, Lars. 1998. "The history of Turkic." In: Johanson & Csató,
pp. 81–125.[7]
- Johanson, Lars. 1998. "Turkic languages." In: Encyclopaedia
Britannica. CD 98. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, 5 September 2007.[8]
- Johanson, Lars. 2000. "Linguistic convergence in the Volga area." In:
Gilbers, Dicky, Nerbonne, John & Jos Schaeken (ed.). Languages in
contact. Amsterdam & Atlanta: Rodopi. (Studies in Slavic and General
linguistics 28.), pp. 165–178.[9]
- Johanson, Lars. 2007. Chuvash. Encyclopedia of Language and
Linguistics. Oxford: Elsevier.
- Kemal, Cemal. 2002. "The Origins of the Huns: A new view on the eastern
heritage of the Hun tribes." (Text edited from conversations with Kemal Cemal,
Turkey, 1 November 2002.) In: The History Files, Features for Europe,
Barbarian Europe.[10]
- Krueger, John. 1961. Chuvash Manual. Bloomington: Indiana
University Publications.
- Maenchen-Helfen, Otto J. 1973. The world of the Huns: Studies in their
history and culture. Berkeley: University of California Press.[11]
- Mukhamadiev, Azgar G. 1995. "The inscription on the plate of Khan Diggiz."
In: In: Problems of the lingo-ethno-history of the Tatar people. Kazan:
Tatarskoe knizhnoe izd-vo, pp. 36–83. (ISBN 5-201-08300, in Russian).
Translated from the Russian into English, www.turkicworld.org.[12]
- Pritsak, Omeljan. 1982. "The Hunnic Language of the Attila Clan."
Harvard Ukrainian Studies, vol. 6, pp. 428–476.
- Róna-Tas, András. 1998. "The reconstruction of Proto-Turkic and the
genetic question." In: Johanson & Csató, pp. 67–80.
- Schönig, Claus. 1997–1998. "A new attempt to classify the Turkic languages
I–III." Turkic Languages 1:1.117–133, 1:2.262–277, 2:1.130–151.
- Samoilovich, A. N. 1922. Some additions to the classification of the
Turkic languages. Petrograd.[13]
- Thompson, E.A. 1948. A History of Attila and the Huns. London:
Oxford University Press. Reedited by Peter Heather. 1996. The Huns.
Oxford: Blackwell.
External links
- The World of the Huns by Otto Maenchen-Helfen, University of
California Press, 1973. Chapter: IX.
Language
|